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The assessment of effects of anthropogenic disturbance on biodiversity (BD) and ecosystem services (ES) and their relationships are key priorities of the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Agricultural landscapes and their associated BD provide multiple ES and it is crucial to understand how relationships between ES and BD components change along gradients of landscap

As a part of the greening of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy in 2013, Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) became mandatory for many European farmers, with the aim to enhance on-farm biodiversity. However, their effects on biodiversity have been disputed. In this interdisciplinary effort, we assessed the effects of current and alternative formulations of EFA regulations in Sweden. By complementing eco

Monitoring the aquatic environment and the life of free-floating organisms remains on the borderline of our technical capabilities. Therefore, our insights into aquatic habitats, such as, abundance and behavior of organisms are limited. In order to improve our understanding of aquatic life, we have developed a low-cost inelastic hyperspectral lidar with unlimited focal depth and enough sensitivity

A thermophilic bacterial strain, Geobacillus sp. ZGt-1, isolated from Zara hot spring in Jordan, was capable of inhibiting the growth of the thermophilic G. stearothermophilus and the mesophilic Bacillus subtilis and Salmonella typhimurium on a solid cultivation medium. Antibacterial activity was not observed when ZGt-1 was cultivated in a liquid medium; however, immobilization of the cells in aga

Organisms in hot environments will not be able to passively dissipate metabolically generated heat. Instead, they have to revert to evaporative cooling, a process that is energetically expensive and promotes excessive water loss. To alleviate these costs, birds in captivity let their body temperature increase, thereby entering a state of hyperthermia. Here we explore the use of hyperthermia in wil

Understanding the effects of different agricultural practices on the mycorrhizal symbiosis is important for agricultural production and the sustainable use of soil. We investigated the composition and diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soils from fields under different agricultural practices (conventional and organic cereal fields, leys and permanent pastures) in southern Sweden. T

Increases in the terrestrial export of dissolved organic carbon (C) to rivers may be associated with additional loading of organic nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to the coastal zone. However, little is known about how these resources interact in the regulation of heterotrophic bacterioplankton metabolism in boreal coastal ecosystems. Here, we measured changes in bacterioplankton production (BP) a

Control of nutrients, mainly nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), plays a significant role in preventing cyanobacterial blooms (harmful algal blooms (HABs)). This study aims at evaluating changes in the risk of the occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms and advancing the understanding of how nitrogen and phosphorus affect the growth of cyanobacteria in a eutrophic lake, Lake Vombsjön, in southern Sweden.

Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is recognized as a driving force for phenotypic divergence. Here, we aim at assessing the ability of zooplankton to induce UVR tolerance and disentangle the relative importance of local adaptations behind the expression of such tolerance. Two populations of Daphnia pulex, derived from environments strongly differing in UVR conditions, were exposed to UVR for 70 d to ind

Backgrounds: Geographic regions, where two closely related taxa with different migration routes come into contact, are known as migratory divides. Hybrids originating from migratory divides are hypothesized to migrate intermediately relative to the parental populations. Few studies have tested this hypothesis in wild birds, and only in hybrids that have completed the migration back to the breeding

Fluvial export of organic matter from the terrestrial catchment to the aquatic system is a large and increasing carbon flux. The successful reduction in sulfuric acid deposition since the 1980s has been shown to enhance the mobility of organic matter in the soil, with more terrestrially derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) reaching aquatic systems. Changes in soil acidity also affect the quality

Predatory arthropods contribute to biological control, but to become an integral part of agricultural management, it is essential to identify drivers of their spatio-temporal distribution at the landscape scale. This study focuses on how agricultural land use affects the community composition, emergence and dispersal tendency of predatory arthropods. The arthropods were collected in emergence trap

Simultaneously enhancing ecosystem services provided by biodiversity below and above ground is recommended to reduce dependence on chemical pesticides and mineral fertilisers in agriculture. However, consequences for crop yield have been poorly evaluated. Above ground, increased landscape complexity is assumed to enhance biological pest control, whereas below ground, soil organic carbon is a proxy

Soil is likely the most complex ecosystem on earth. Despite the global importance and extraordinary diversity of soils, they have been notoriously challenging to study. We show how pioneering microfluidic techniques provide new ways of studying soil microbial ecology by allowing simulation and manipulation of chemical conditions and physical structures at the microscale in soil model habitats.The

The spatial extent of ecological processes has consequences for the generation of ecosystem services related to them. However, management often fails to consider issues of scale when targeting ecological processes underpinning ecosystem services generation. Here, we present a framework for conceptualizing how the amount and spatial scale (here discussed in terms of extent) of management interventi

Background and aims: Decomposition and transformation of organic matter (OM) in forest soils are conducted by the concomitant action of saprotrophic and mycorrhizal fungi. Here, we examine chemical changes in OM after fungal colonization in nitrogen fertilized and unfertilized soils from a Norway spruce forest. Methods: Sand-filled bags amended with composted maize leaves were placed in the forest

This study investigates the challenges and potential pathways for improved science communication, particularly in regards to research on the topic of smallholder food security and for science being generated by universities in sub-Saharan Africa. Questions asked in this study include those that aim to identify the academic substrate from which a university based in Africa must navigate. It also id

Microbial decomposers colonising submerged leaf litter are in close spatial proximity with periphytic algae and can use carbon (C) exudates released during photosynthesis. We investigated whether labile C delivered as algal exudates could affect the microbial colonisation and decomposition of leaf litter. Using microcosms, we submerged leaf litter in pond water and monitored fungal and bacterial g

Long-distance migrants with transcontinental breeding ranges are of particular interest for the study of local adaptation and geographic differentiation in birds. We compared phenotypes and genotypes between Far East Siberian Willow Warblers Phylloscopus trochilus yakutensis Ticehurst, 1935 with the European subspecies P. t. trochilus Linnaeus, 1758 and P. t. acredula Linnaeus, 1758. We found sign